Coal has been go on our light on and our houses warm for centuries . But coal ’s underlying messiness — both in mining it and burn it — has always been a job . So it ’s no surprise that many people today advocate for neat alternatives . What may come in as a surprisal , however , is that some people were dream of a cleaner energy future closely a century ago .
In the January 1925 outlet of Science and Invention cartridge clip , publisher and authorHugo Gernsbacktook the chance to write about his own era as a kind of dark age . Many citizenry were rightly majestic of all the advancements being made — including inradio broadcast medium , air power , woman ’s rights , andnew inventions — but Gernsback was quick to point out that they should n’t get too majestic of themselves .
https://gizmodo.com/walk-through-metal-detectors-were-invented-to-catch-thi-520336775
Take , for representative , the pollution of the 1920s . Cars “ pollute the air travel and in streets ” and contemporary forms of energy for the home and manufacturing plant were tremendously uneconomical . Gernsback insisted that option like hydroelectric , solar , wind , and even atomic energy were rightfully going to be the future — provided they could figure out how to utilise them in good order .
Far from a wondrous age of enlightenment , Gernsback wrote , the future would evaluate the people of the other 20th century quite harshly .
From the January 1925 issue of Science and Invention :
Too many people nowadays are prone to settlethemselves back in their chairs and congratulatethemselves about the wonderful eld in which weare living . With railway , airships , radio and other “ marvelous ” activity bristle around us , it is easy to tranquillize oneself into the notion that surely the millenium has arrived and that the human beings will never look flushed than it does now .
As a matter of fact , 300 year hence this present eld of ours will probably be termed “ the dark age of science . ” This is not but a stop idiom used by the author , but he means it in all earnestness , and what is more , he can easy examine it .
Nowadays it make us laugh when we think of how people in England and other part of the earth some five hundred years ago [ lived ] on top of ember mines and freeze to death . They simply did not know that coal would fire and that it could be made to heat theater and otherwise do tremendous piece of work . While we laugh , you should soberly consider that we are doing the ego same thing ourselves today . All about us there is untold quantity of free energy , much cheaper , much better , more sanitary than coal , but we merely have not learned how to apply it because we do not have it off . Every piece of rock , every auto full of sand has a potential dormant power lock up up within it . We may call this business leader atomic or by any other name , but the fact remain that we do not use it because we do not know how .
At37%of full production , coal is currently America ’s largest beginning of electricity , beating the next two close rival — natural gasoline ( 30 % ) and atomic ( 19 % ) . So even though we seemingly live in “ the future , ” we ’re still using an energy source that ’s centuries older . In the 1980s , evenMickeytaught kids that you Americans really had nothing to worry about ; coal would be there for generation to come .
https://gizmodo.com/that-time-mickey-mouse-and-goofy-shilled-for-exxon-at-d-1391922492
But even back in 1925 , Gernsback warned that the contamination of ember was taking its price :
Take a keen city like New York , which burns one thousand of tons of coal whose merchandise contaminate the atmosphere every day , while right at its very feet two mighty rivers , the Hudson and the East Rivers flowing by its shores , which rivers every day can actually furnish more power than all the coal burn in a year . Still , this might power goes to waste in this coloured years of ours .
Waste and inefficiency were not only things to be ashamed of for reasons of pride , there were dead rational economic factor to consider . Gernsback explained how tremendously wasteful 1920s push production was by drawing compare to run to the butcher workshop and getting just a fraction of the nitty-gritty you paid for :
When you go to the butcher and order a 10 - Sudanese pound roast , you would become highly indignant if he handed you over 9 3/4 pounds of pearl and less than 1/4 Syrian pound of meat , but when you pay your electric light bill at the end of the calendar month and you post the lighting troupe your substantiation for $ 10.00 you do this very affair . The reason is that exactly 98 % of the electric mightiness go up in useless heat , which you do not need and which you do not want but which you must pay for . You actually get 2 % of brightness , and in monastic order to get this 2 % you have to give 98 % for something that is a full loss . Of course all this will make people express mirth merrily 300 age hence , and they will not be able-bodied to understand how we could yield such frightful losings .
The “ dark eld of science ” was also bring about by an invention that Gernsback sees as not only airy , but a “ monstrosity ” : the automobile .
The car , Gernsback contends , makes life in the city practically intolerable — a fascinating position from a futurist and trailblazer who fully embraced most any glistening young technology that came along .
Then we go and contrive the motorcar , another monstrosity of the “ dark long time of science . ” to propel the same , we generate carbon - monoxide that pollutes the air in our streets , feed us headaches , and otherwise makes life unbearable for us . But this is far from being the risky . Here we go and create the automobile and then make so many of them that they become useless by their very numbers . Instead of transporting us quicker than the erstwhile horse - drawn vehicle , we actually find that the latter was much quick , in many instances . If you try , in any of our big city streets , to go about promptly , you will find that there is only one way of doing it and that is you must add up right back to prehistoric metre and walk . In cities like New York and Chicago , you may get over ground much quicker for sane space on foot than by car .
Gernsback finishes the editorial by lament the want of advancement that had been made by the mid-1920s — definitely a counter - narrative to the recognized wisdom of the time . Rather than an geological era of progress , they were living in an era of “ unspeakable waste ” that their great - bang-up - not bad grandchildren will find repugnant .
Far from living in the millenium , we are live in anage of unspeakable waste . There is hardly anything that we can think of that is not waste .
We roll in the hay today the power of waterfalls , the integral major power of the tide , the inherent powerof moving river , yet—99 % of this goes entirelyto waste . Wind power , another large germ ofenergy , is hardly touch at all . This poweralone is so huge that a small fraction of it , the right way give , would supply the world with sufficient energy to run all the machinery , all trainsand all of our vehicles . Water exponent and tip power are well understood and can be exploited by us even today , but no real cause in this direction is to be discerned .
We do not wish even to speak of the powerfulness derived from the sun ’s heat , because we have as yet not institute the keyto unlock this tremendous energy , which is far , far greaterthan all the others combine . At the present time we simply use sun big businessman that has been stored up by nature millions of class ago . This is the case with coal , petrol and practically every otherfuel . All other strain of vigor thatare lying about us in every directionare not even touched . It is a comfort thought that our great - great - grandchild will stick out on their own wooden leg , for they will screw how to unlock apower creation , invisible to us .
Gernsback ’s words evidently make us wonder how the futurity will judge our own era . It I had to guess , I ’d say we , the people of the early 21st century , will be judge even harsh than the people of the 1920s .
Many of the energy job call in Gernsback ’s column take technological solutions . But in this age of science denial — from anti - vaccination fanatics to climate change deniers to GMO alarmists — our forward-looking challenges are as much about PR and politics as they are about technology . Perhaps ours is the rightful dark age of skill .
I ca n’t envisage that story will be tolerant .
photograph : tike sour in a coal mine in Pennsylvania in 1911 via theLibrary of Congress
Energytransportation
Daily Newsletter
Get the best tech , skill , and culture news in your inbox daily .
intelligence from the future , fork up to your nowadays .
You May Also Like
